Password Changes Coming

Beginning in October 2004, faculty and students will experience several changes to password management.  (Administrators completed the process last spring.)  Those who haven't changed their password in 120 days will be required to do so.  10 days before your password is set to expire, an e-mail notification will go out to remind you to change it.  We highly recommend that you don't wait, but change your password before you leave for the day.  To do this, browse to the website http://password.trincoll.edu and follow the script. 

If you've experienced any difficulty in changing your password, contact the Help Desk at x2100.  For tips about creating password, please keep reading. 

Selecting a Password

Choosing and maintaining an appropriate network password is one of the most basic and effective ways of securing on-line data.  There is a bit of an art to it.  You need to create a string that is reasonably cryptic and yet still easy enough to recall so it doesn't need to be written down.  And you must also change it regularly, so even after going through the exercise of coming up with a good secure password you can't keep it too long.

In order to help insure the security of the passwords, several requirements are imposed by our system.  They must be a minimum of 7 characters long, and must include at least three of the following:

•     lower-case characters (a-z)
•     upper-case characters (A-Z)
•     digits 0-9
•     special characters ` ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & ( ) * - + = | \ { } [ ] : ; " ' < > , . ? /

Passwords can be changed once a day, and a history is maintained to prevent repeated and predictable use of the same password.

Macintosh users please note: You should not select a password longer than 8 characters.  Network file servers won't work with longer ones.

Here are a few tips for creating good passwords.

Dos:

Start with a sentence or phrase, and take the first letter of each word and add numbers and/or symbols 

my dog Sparky is four years old  becomes mdSi4yo

Use random capitalization:

EBs45kc becomes eBS45Kc

Employ character substitution for sounds:

waits becomes w8s

Before becomes b4

Incorporate phonetic spellings:

laugh becomes laf

weight becomes wat

Don'ts:

Include personal information like your initials, name, nickname, phone extension or home number, children's names etc.

Use of common characters or place names from literature or mythology.

Use words that appear in a dictionary.

If you employ the rules above, you can invent good secure passwords.  Here an example:

"Time waits for no one"  becomes tW8S4no1

    

September 2004